


Outtakes from the Sea in Between: The Blue Lion's Song

by Oh_Contrary



Series: The Sea in Between [8]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt Lance (Voltron), M/M, Magic, OC Villains, Outtakes, Quintessence (Voltron), canon-possible magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:07:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28418118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oh_Contrary/pseuds/Oh_Contrary
Summary: A POV Reversal of the end of Chapter 20.The blue lion's song: aka the author continues to use canon-possible magic in fun ways.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron), Lance & Voltron: Legendary Defender Team
Series: The Sea in Between [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/674951
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Outtakes from the Sea in Between: The Blue Lion's Song

**Author's Note:**

> Heya lovelies~
> 
> 2020, Amiright?
> 
> Anywho, this is already on [the grrl aliens](https://linktr.ee/tgrrrlaliens)! (Where I'm archiving all of my art, written and visual!) I've been buzzing through this fic for some reason, and I need to post this before I post chapter 21: it's the bridge between the chapters.
> 
> This outtake bridges the end of Chapter 20 of Sea in Between; which I of course want you to read first.
> 
> There are no specific warnings I think should go with this, but, as always, let me know if there are any specific content/trigger warnings I should add.
> 
> besos from space-os  
> ~t

He couldn’t stand to stay in the room at night. He had spent too many nights in an enclosed space for it to let him rest.

He was grateful for the room’s small window. It meant that he could always look out at his surroundings. They were grounded somewhere with bright green light that trickled in each morning as he woke. Or sometimes, as he wandered back in to sleep.

Sleep was a stranger now. He did it, but didn't feel like he did. He was always exhausted. How couldn't he be when his mind never stopped rushing through the calculations of carefully surviving this odd place he couldn’t understand.

He moved carefully through each day, following the pack around and attempting to find his place among them as the “Lance” of the group. He was an underling, like the chef and the halfling. He couldn’t place the small one. Overprotected, likely because they were the youngest, but yet completely unafraid of him. Then again, they were both favored by their elders in odd ways...

He shook himself, he wanted to focus. He wanted to listen for the echo again. He had free reign of this strange place, he wouldn’t waste it.

But he had no idea what he was looking for. There were no words to describe what he was looking for, certainly not in the all-speak. No it was a sound that, if he could compare it to anything, he would have to say it was like—

_Freezing fingers and searing heat. A cold laugh, high and cruel in the caverns of his head._

He shuddered, stopping where he was. He clenched his eyes shut, letting the echo swirl through him, freezing out the press of the druid's fingers in his memories. He blinked his eyes back open and looked around.

He didn’t know where he was, but when did he ever? He didn’t worry about getting lost any more. Now that the halfling had taken to following him, he always awoke where he should. He looked back at him, human now, as he often had been, but there was something in his eyes at times that, inexplicably, yellowed in certain light. He was sure he wasn't all human, but he couldn't seem to place the strange, familiar energy that the other boy exuded.

He couldn’t explain it, but he knew they weren’t all one species. This one was something between. A shapeshifter perhaps then, not a halfling. Or another type of alien like the old one and the one they obeyed. Regardless, they… were as close to a comfort as he had found. A security he supposed.

Even tonight, he had gone to the door and there the odd one had been, as if summoned by his own thirst to guide him to water.

He wished more than ever for a word, for the sound in his brain. Instead, he looked back down at his feet, starting on his right and letting the list float through his brain. It was a bizarre series of equations he had yet to solve. He didn’t know when he’d learned them, but the riddles and rhymes that floated to the surface calmed him when he couldn’t still his mind on his own.

Perhaps it was his own constant buzzing that kept him from noticing the echo’s deafening call until so late.

He looked up at the great doors he’d landed in front of. The echo told him to go in. It showed him where to place his hand, singing sweet instructions into his head—

And when the doors opened, there she was: the singer he’d been hearing all along.

She purred in his mind, but he knew she belonged there. Gone was the sweltering heat of Nurav’s touch. All was cool wind and familiar feelings, even as he felt strange magic overtake his body.

He doesn't know how long he floated there, swaddled in cool words and wind; but that was how the music felt. Each note struck something different within him, pointing through the violet dark of the druid's influence.

The blue lion's song ended. So too did his imprisonment.

***

Pidge had had her life’s fill of alien magicks. They unsettled her, and it left a residue she swore she could feel after each encounter. Although she would be remiss to blame the sinking feeling overtaking her on the nauseating aftereffects of another magical encounter, and not the way Lance’s hand had been ice in hers.

When he ran out the room, she hadn’t actually been surprised. Logic told her they should have expected it. Have slowed down. They were too eager— “overwhelmed him, that’s all,” Coran had said, setting his scanner down as he reassured them. All eyes pointed out the hangar doors.

Part of Pidge wanted to jump up and run after him. They’d waited so long for a moment like that and it had ended so quickly.

“I’m going after him,” Hunk said after a silent moment stretched to long.

“Don’t.” Shiro said tensely. “We need to figure out what just happened.”

Even though Hunk’s brow furrowed and his heart wanted to chase after Lance, he reluctantly sat down. He looked at Keith, who obviously felt the same. Were it not for Shiro’s hand closed tight around Keith’s arm, he likely would have already taken off after their friend.

Keith’s eyes turned slowly away from the hangar doors, landing on the group. He jolted and blushed, shame filling him from his hair to his boots. If the others were put off by the violet flush, they didn’t show it, though Shiro’s arm loosened slightly.

“Just start when you found him, Keith,” Shiro said softly, looking intently at the red paladin.

“I… I didn’t,” Keith croaked, violet eyes meeting Shiro’s for a second before flicking away. He gazed just past Shiro to Coran’s impassive face. Something calm and reassuring was in the caretaker’s eyes. “We- we walked down here together. Lance asked me for water, and afterwards he walked here. He let himself in and touched Blue. I didn’t try and stop him I— And... and then Red was in my head.”

Keith was unsettled to hear the words leave his own mouth, realizing how odd the incomplete story must sound to them. He braved a look at the group, all of whom were watching him, a hundred questions asked by four pairs of eyes.

“It’s true,” he said, defending himself unprompted. He looked at Shiro, who was thinking, one thumb stroking his chin.

“No one said it wasn’t Keith,” Shiro reassured quickly, planting an absent hand on his back.

“So,” Hunk started slowly. “When Lance isn’t sleeping and pacing the castle, this is what he’s been looking for?”

“But Lance has been in his room most mornings,” Shiro countered.

“But his sleep is still irregular.” Pidge said. “His activity hasn’t changed.”

“That’s me,” Keith admitted quietly. “I carry him to bed most nights after… After walks." Another awkward pause. Keith felt like he could even feel the blue lion listening as she hovered over them, sitting stoic and calm as if tonight were nothing out of the ordinary. Keith sighed. "We can’t sleep and I found him walking around one night, and- and now sometimes we do together.”

Keith looked up as he heard both Hunk and Pidge started to speak, but Shiro cut them off with a hand. He looked at Keith, who had, likely unwittingly, reverted nearly fully Galra in his nervousness.

“How long has this been going on?” 

“About a week? It started after the greenhouse I think.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Hunk asked. For that Keith had no answer. He looked uselessly at Hunk, mouth opening once before slowly closing again. Hunk said nothing, though his brows knit even further together.

Before the quiet could grow too oppressive, Coran piped up.

“With this all cleared up for now, let’s call this a night I will collect Lance and make sure he’s checked over and put to bed. You all should join the princess and get some rest—” Coran cut off as Shiro gasped abruptly, gaze returning to the hangar doors.

“Allura was right behind me,” he said seriously. He rose halfway out of his crouch, looking at Coran, whose brows drew together.

“When?”

“When our lion’s woke us. I thought I was hearing Blue, so I ran to check on her. We both started down here, and when I got down here, I thought she was with me. But during all the chaos I don’t know where she would’ve gone…”

“Alright. Then we have two blue paladins to check on before I suspect anyone will be getting any rest,” he muttered. Shiro nodded, coming to stand with Coran.

“Pidge, you and Coran go set up the med bay. Keith and Hunk, find Lance and get him to the med bay. I’ll find Allura. We’ll regroup down there.”

They all agreed, the plan seemed simple enough. Then again, so many plans had lately.

Team Voltron settled in for another long night.

**Author's Note:**

> I look forward to seeing y'all for Chapter 21 in 2021.
> 
> ~t


End file.
